'Timeless' Recap: 'The Day Reagan Was Shot'

Written by John Edward Betancourt

THIS IS THE EMERGENCY SPOILER ALERT SYSTEM...YOU ARE ADVISED TO READ AT YOUR OWN RISK...

You know, I really am impressed with the fact that NBC’s Timeless always finds news ways to surprise its audience week in and week out, which I’m sure is no easy feat, but this series is always up to the challenge and this week’s episode, ‘The Day Reagan Was Shot’, was no exception to that rule. Because what looked to be their biggest mission to date this season, one where they would have to ensure President Ronald Reagan was indeed shot by John Hinckley Jr., ended up being quite the beautiful character study as the Time Team worked to save something equally as important as the future; their own existence.
 
Because as it turns out, Hinckley and Reagan were afterthoughts on March 30, 1981, the real Rittenhouse target was a young Washington D.C. police officer named Denise Christopher, and thanks to Wyatt’s quick thinking, he was able to prevent her from being shot, but there was more work to be done in order to keep the future Agent Christopher safe and that where’s our fascinating character study began. For shortly after Denise went into the hospital to have her wounds treated, Lucy and Jiya went to try and recruit her to help in finding the shooter, and we all got an inside look at young Denise’s life, and how tradition in her family mattered above all else, and with her life threated in the life of duty, her mother pushed and pushed hard to have Denise enter into an arranged marriage, and surprisingly, she agreed to it.
 
This of course, meant doom for the Time Team. Because if Officer Christopher got married now, she’d likely the leave the force and never join the FBI and Homeland Security, and never bring everyone together and more importantly, she would likely spend her life in misery since she would remain in the closet in a loveless marriage. And despite helping Denise with the case, it seemed the marriage was on, forcing Lucy to pull out the big guns…and reveal the future to Denise and in a beautiful sequence, wherein Denise learned what kind of happy and incredible life she was going to live if she didn’t acquiesce to her mother’s wishes, called off the marriage and stepped into uncertainty, at least in her mind and it was just beautiful to see how much living her life, her way, mattered to Denise, and it was wonderful to see that not only did she walk the path that Lucy showed her was possible, but that her life received a few positive enhancements along the way once the team had time to catch up when they returned to 2018.  
 
However, it wasn’t all sunshine and rainbows in this tale, because the whole Rittenhouse mess took quite the fascinating turn in this one, thanks to the fact that Wyatt and Rufus managed to capture the sleeper agent alive, and he was willing to spill his guts about anything they wanted to know. This allowed for us to learn that Rittenhouse finds people in crisis, and helps them in any way necessary to gain their loyalty, and that matters, because in the closing moments of this episode, we came to learn that Jessica’s family received help when her brother was near death as a boy, and let’s be honest…despite her admission that she’s now pregnant, because I firmly believe that was a distraction, the fact that Rittenhouse helped her family raises all kinds of questions and it looks more and more that she may in fact be a sleeper agent after all since her family now fits the profile of how these monsters suck you in…
 
When all is said and done however, this episode was simply top notch. I loved the fact that it focused on the importance of family because that’s an element that’s rare to see in stories such as these, and it made for some genuinely touching moments, including when Flynn did Agent Christopher a solid and convinced her to go home to spend time with her wife and kids, just in case the worst-case scenario came to fruition. But despite all the fun and joy found in this one, I really am concerned when it comes to Jessica now, because none of this looks good and it should be interesting to learn what exactly she’s been up to all of this time. Either way, I loved this episode, and how beautiful it turned out to be, and I cannot wait to have all of our questions answered during next week’s two-hour season finale fiesta. Until then. 

---